The Interview

(Scene: Nicola England is sitting in a business suit on one side of a desk in an office with some papers and a laptop/tablet in front of her. Isaac Wire, a few years younger, is sitting opposite her in a suit seemingly fresh on that morning, with an anxious attitude that seems a bit too eager-to-please. There is an Unnamed Man taking notes just off from Nicola.)

Nicola England: Good morning Mr Wire, I hope you found us OK. Should I call you Mr Wire or by your first name?

Isaac Wire: Good morning, oh Isaac’s fine. Yes, the directions were very clear, thank you.

NE: So you will have read all about the job, and we’ve selected you for interview based on the strength of your CV, of which I have a printout here. You seem to have experience in lots of different areas, which is good, but none in the exact field of this job?

IW: Yes, but in my other positions I worked very much in and around this discipline, and was often covering for friends in exactly this job. Well, what they called this job, anyway.

NE: Covering for friends?

IW: Yes, when they were off sick or were trying to avoid the boss, if I owed them a favour I would step in for the day and make sure they didn’t fall behind, while learning myself.

NE: I see. Doesn’t seem like managerial oversight was much of a priority at these other places then?

IW: I suppose not, not really. A couple of my managers, and colleagues I guess, preferred to focus on ‘the human element’.

NE: Do you feel it’s possible to include the human element as you put it while looking after your own responsibilities?

IW: Yes of course, and in an ideal work environment we might not have to cover our colleagues. But in the world I’ve worked in we’ve helped each other out, and eventually come out the other end of whatever the situation was, smiling. I mean, the job does involve a fair degree of personal care, from my experience.

NE: Yes, but it depends on how that care is carried out. At our company the duty of care must be practised without personal emotional involvement. How the member of staff handles that is up to them.

IW: Yes I see. I sometimes handle a tough day with a drink at the end of it.

NE: I see. As long as the effects of that aren’t seen in sick days, hangovers or unpredictability of mood, it’s fine.

IW: Well I try not to have too much of any of that!

NE: Sure. How ambitious would you say you are? Where do you see yourself in ten years time?

IW: Hm, not very ambitious at all really. I try to do a good, thorough job, and enjoy the moment. In ten years? I guess it would depend on my headspace and life conditions at the time. No idea to be honest. I like to work in a collaborative, warm environment than a competitive, nervous one. If that helps?

NE: It doesn’t matter what you think might help, just honest answers will do. If you were made team leader of a project and one of your team claimed they were being victimised, what would you do?

IW: Well my parents met at work, and friendships turn into romantic relationships all the time. I find it strange that this sweet part of life isn’t encouraged more than it is, to be honest.

NE: But do you understand why there is safeguarding about these things in most company guidelines?

IW: Yes, because the world of work is terrified of lawsuits where sexual harassment payouts are expensive and bad for company PR. Often because of a fit-up, or it’s seen as easy money, or revenge because one party has moved on, and the other can’t. Etc.

NE: You sound like you’ve had some experience of this kind of thing?

IW: Yes I suppose you could say I have. I also watch the news, and like anyone else I’m utterly jaded about the whole subject. I guess at the end of the day if I genuinely fell in love at work, it wouldn’t be that hard to quit to pursue the relationship. Even if that seemed unfair.

NE: What about if it wasn’t a relationship, if it was just attraction, good time fun?

IW: This feels like a trick question.

NE: I promise it’s not.

IW: Well in that case I think everyone should be able to do whatever they want, wherever they want, with whomever they want. Ideologically. Practically that might be a problem, I see.

NE: What about power imbalances?

IW: I was talking idealistically. In that ideal world, there would be no power imbalances as we know them, because there would be no conventional hierarchies.

NE: So in your ideal world, colleagues would be having relationships left, right and centre?

IW: Well potentially I guess so, but not everyone is attracted to each other like that, are they? I mean people don’t just constantly get off with each other because they’re in the same vicinity, do they?

NE: When was the last time you heard of two people from utterly different backgrounds either marrying or entering into a civil partnership?

IW: Never, now you mention it.

NE: Exactly. These rules are in place for the vanishing minority to have freedom of choice, not that they ever take it. Like I say, we like to really get to know our potential employees here.

IW: I can tell! Bordering on crossed boundaries, as you guys would say. Just banter. sorry, I like open communication.

NE: If you were a team leader and a person of colour interviewed who you knew from experience would be a difficult team player – complaining, playing the race card as you saw it, etc – how would you proceed?

IW: If the candidate was as qualified as all the other candidates?

NE: Give or take the odd certificate, yes.

IW: In an ideal world I’d tell them that they were not a good fit because of their attitude, a spiky personality will ruin good vibes. The hope is that the good vibes would prevail, and all would be well.

NE: A ‘play the ball, not the man’ type of position, then?

IW: Yes. I think that equal rights have been fought for and won across the board, and any future campaigning for them is anti-nature. Whether people divide themselves along racial or gender lines now is now in their hands. An expectation of homogeneity being universally desired shouldn’t be assumed.

NE: Celebrate the differences?

IW: Well not even celebrate really, more just ‘acknowledge’.

NE: Imagine I’m dyslexic. What would you do about the document you asked me to write up that was repeatedly full of spelling mistakes and syntax errors?

IW: Again and again? I’d say thanks for trying and either give it to someone else to quietly do or do it myself if I had time.

NE: What about leaving it as an example of neuro-diversity in the workplace, using it as an example of ‘different-English’?

IW: That would seem like cutting off your nose to help your face?

NE: This is where minority rights are right now. Dyslexic people will be writing government speeches, people with speech impediments will be reading the news, and no-one of a race different from that written will be allowed to perform in plays, or displays of non-consenting cultural appropriation, as the guidance says.

IW: Didn’t we go through three elections to get rid of all this a few years ago?

NE: To get rid of the principle of deleterious social progress, sure, but not the reality. It’s like a bee-sting: the business part remains still under the skin, doing its work long after the pain has gone. Do you not see this as working towards a better future?

IW: No, I see it as contrary to common sense, and on agreed standards of logic, and 1 suppose what I’d once have called a ‘gold standard’.

NE: But those standards are relative to an outdated patriarchal model, and are not inclusive of everyone in society.

IW: What about when everyone in society is represented, including anti-semites, misogynists, neo-nazis, violent jihadis, benefit frauds, crack mothers and people convicted of sex offences?

NE: Well I suppose the work that they do will have to be included too.

IW: And complained about the next day in the tabloid press, paid for by the precariat and old working class, supported by universal credit in order to prop up this inclusion?

NE: Exactly. The key question is, what can you bring our company in terms of diversity?

IW: I’m not sure really. My grandmother was Irish if that counts?

NE: Hm, no, that’s in almost everyone. Anything else?

IW: Well I voted for Reclaim?

NE: Aha, the UKIP of culture! Well that’s certainly a minority pursuit, I’ll write it in the box and see what happens.

IW: Let me ask you a question then. Do you think the people that set these guidelines care that the Russians and Chinese are laughing at us while strong-manning up the evolutionary ladder?

NE: Let them strongman away. This is what social progress looks like. Those countries will come to realise this, either this century or in the next.

IW: Even if we’re not around to see it?

NE: Even if we’re not around to see it. Oh, don’t catastrophise so. Our ancestors designed this, we’re just living with it. Don’t blame yourself.

IW: I don’t blame myself. I do worry though that what I see as normal, human, common sense is obstructing my even getting a job that I know I could do well.

NE: Doing it well depends on peer review, and how you and others around you felt about how it went.

IW: What’s it got to do with how anyone felt about it?

NE: Because however profitable or productive it might be, a corresponding value is emotional outcomes. If the first is positive at the expense of the negativity of the latter, the process becomes undesirable.

IW: I’m not sure how anything’s going to work any more under this much weird scrutiny.

NE: Your ‘weird scrutiny’ is someone else’s due diligence Mr Wire. Basically their happiness is more important that whether the product works well or not.

IW: Isaac. I’d say I don’t want to work in this kind of world, if I didn’t need to pay the rent, and I’m no fan of state support unless urgent. And that kind of talk isn’t going to get me the job, is it?

NE: Don’t hold back, it’s good to get to know how you think and feel about the way we, and everybody else, is doing things now. If we did decide to work together, you’d be able to get support in getting used to the change. We have a whole department devoted to this, actually. My department.

IW: Really? I thought you were in charge of product design, what I’d be doing?

NE: I am, but I also oversee and co-ordinate human resources orientation, to make sure that new recruits join as seamlessly as possible, to iron out any possible bumps in the road. I oversee the making and the nurturing of the process, if you like.

IW: I see.

NE: How do you feel about that?

IW: Why is it important how I feel about it? Am I also expected to burst into tears due to the stress of it all? Is there a reporter nearby?

NE: Because as I say, your feelings, even as a job candidate, are more important than the product.

IW: What if I don’t consent to my feelings being seen as more important than the product?

NE: Hm, that would be a first, and not sure that’s possible actually. Rules are rules.

IW: Can I ask a hypothetical question? If the product was found to have a fatal design flaw at exactly the same time that an employee felt unhappy about the direction of the project, which issue would take precedence?

NE: Well it would be hypothetical if it hadn’t already happened, a couple of times! We’d look for the balance of benefit to dealing with them both simultaneously.

IW: Even if their interests cancelled each other out?

NE Especially if their interests cancelled each other out. That was what I called a professional challenge. Though ultimately, the feelings question would win out. How we feel about things trumps what the things actually are, each time.

IW: How’s the suicide rate here?

NE: Not one suicide on record, not one due to workplace stress anyway. It’s perfectly fine for most staff when they just step forward with an open mind and a smile. Positive thinking can go a long way, we find.

IW: No doubt, but is there any evidence that positive thinking can make a physical object work consistently better?

NE: Better is a subjective term, and how you feel about that object changes its nature towards how you perceive it, thus it changes itself. Do they not teach this at engineering college these days?

IW: I’m not sure they ever did, to be honest.

NE: Who would you consider to be more British, David Lammy or Jimmy Savile?

IW: Wow! Erm I’m not sure how to answer that?

NE: I asked, would you like to answer? It’s how we gauge opinions on identity, tolerance and diversity.

IW: And loyalty?

NE: Well since that’s your answer, yes I suppose so. Do you think the crime of rape should only be applied to situations with force and violence?

IW: Absolutely, yes.

NE: What about when the complainant couldn’t have consented because she was

drunk?

IW: If they’d both been drinking together and they both go to bed together, then they’re choosing to step into their own amoral dimension together. That’s what sharing alcohol is all about.

NE: Ok. Do you think people should be able to declare themselves a different gender at any age?

IW: Hm. My primal brain says that it’s impossible and pointless to change gender because we may feel a certain way. My modern brain says everything is possible and (almost) all should be tolerated. With all safeguarding and counselling having been done, why not? I also think people should be able to have counselling to ‘cure their gayness’ if they want.

NE: Interesting. Because you think homosexuality is unnatural?

IW: No, because the person might simply want help in being more traditional, or may just want to have children unassisted. It’s just a different kind of tolerance: tolerance for the traditionally-minded.

NE: I see. Do you think anyone should be allowed to live anywhere in the world they like?                                                    

IW: In an ideal world with the same tax rates everywhere, sure. But it’s not an ideal world, and while individuals usually behave fine, groups of people generally mistrust other groups of people. We’re hardwired to do that, and making people feel guilty about it is anti-evolutionary.

NE: Well thank you Mr Wire. I think we have just about everything we need, at least for now (she looks briefly at the unnamed man). Is there anything else you’d like to ask me before we finish?

IW: Not really, it seems like we’ve been to the moon and back. I think I enjoyed it actually.

NE: Thank you Mr Wire. Then, we’ll be in touch.